Beth Ditto answers weight critics who accuse her of having a 'live fast, die young' attitude: 'Die young, says who?'

The singer and designer talks to The Independent about why she is happy to be called plus-size, the problems with fat fashion and airbrushing after releasing her own clothing line

Beth Ditto's collection (Bethditto.com)

Beth Ditto burst into view somewhere around 2006 with her band The Gossip, a subversive and unapologetically fat, femme, feminist, riot grrrl frontwoman with an unforgettable voice.

Ditto paved the way for the body positivity movement that is gaining so much traction 10 years later, appearing on stage in disco inspired, flamboyant outfits which were sometimes discarded and replaced by underwear mid-show. As one of the few big women to also court the attention of fashion designers at that time, Ditto made waves by collaborating with Jean Paul Gaultier, sashaying down Marc Jacob’s catwalk and with her naked image splashed across the front cover of Love Magazine under the headline: ‘Icons of our generation’.

But while Ditto was becoming a favourite among esteemed fashion designers, none were actually designing clothes for her, or any woman past a certain size.

Now, Ditto has returned with her own eponymous clothing line. Her impetus for branching into solo fashion design was a ‘now or never moment’; Ditto, like many plus-size women, was sick of being limited in her sartorial choices to poor quality materials, predictable prints and formless clothes.

“There is nothing like that for us, in terms of quality," she says. ”So much of plus-size fashion is disposable and way, way f**king overpriced for what it is. You end up feeling like you’re being marginalised.”

Her collection includes silk jumpsuits, form-fitting dresses and statement denim jackets available in UK sizes 18-32 on her website and in store at Selfridges.

Ditto is apologetic about the cost of the items, which she says are expensive because they are all made ethically, from scratch, in Manhattan, but she is also keen to stress their quality. “One of the jumpsuits is made from seven yards of silk. Where else is that happening?”

Plus-size is an increasingly divisive term the body-positive movement can’t seem to agree on. Size 26 supermodel Tess Holliday is more forthright in her opinion of groups such as Drop the Plus who protest the term: “I think they're stupid. End of.” But models such as Ashley Graham rally against the categorisation of women by weight, believing such labels propagate unrealistic and unhealthy perceptions of size vs beauty.

Ditto is happy to call her clothing range a plus-size collection. “I think that I don’t care at all,” she replies when asked for her own opinion of the term. “I’ve always been really comfortable with the word fat. I don’t really give a s**t about the word curvy. I understand why people use it but that’s not anything that I've ever identified [with]. I’m not a road, you know? Fold, foldy? Roly poly? One of my favourite things I ever read about myself, because I don’t read much stuff, but I remember that it was headlined on - maybe in a gossip column that you couldn’t avoid - it said 'rock’n’roly poly'. And I thought that was amazing! It’s so creative and smart.

“I think it’s all on how you look at it. I think the point is that we shouldn’t be an extension of the norm because we are all human beings.”

One recent weight-related comment that both amused and perplexed Ditto came during a live chat with readers from The Guardian. “Someone was like, ‘how do you feel about your lifestyle choice to be your weight’.“ She pauses.

"They were like, do you have this opinion of ‘live fast, die young’? I was like, if there’s anything going on, there’s no fast living. That’s the other thing: it’s so strange and I’ve said it for years that people will look at me then look at someone who is really thin - they could have f**king diabetes and Crohn's disease, then look at me and be like...But there’s nothing wrong with me.

“This idea of ‘live fast, die young’ - I’m not toting a gun, it's not the Wild West, you know? It’s like die young, says who? It’s just so funny. But that’s the thing, I feel like there are people trying to change that mentality and I’m just like, I am not here to change their minds. I do not give a s**t what they think. What you say about me is none of my business. I just want the people who feel kind of s**t too, I just want them to realise that it’s all bulls**t anyway.”

She is however encouraged by the speed at which the body positivity movement, now propelled by women such as Holliday and Graham, and campaigns such as Plus is Equal, continue to grow at, making plus-size women more visible than ever before.

“I think Tess' popularity had a lot to do with it,” adds Ditto. “Its happened really fast. It's really incredible to see it happen. I think the internet and Instagram had a really big thing to do with it [too] because so much of it is based on imagery and visuals instead of just words and text. It really is an interesting time to see it happen. I also wondered when I was in my 20s what the people who were there before me were thinking of me and it's really fun to be in that position to be [looking at] the 25-year-olds and what they're doing. It's really cool. That's what you do it for.”

Where does she stand on airbrushing now she has her own fashion line fronted by Barbie Ferreira, a model who is also appearing un-airbrushed in a groundbreaking campaign for a major retailer against retouched photos? “I think people need a little bit of honesty. What's the point in retouching everything? At a certain point ...you could say it's boring, but it's just pointless. Like, what's the point in that? It's not going to look like that on someone. No-one looks like that.”

She is unsure as to whether her own campaign airbrushed models, although she hopes this is not the case. “If there was, I hope there was an extra fat roll added.”